Currently the yearly global death toll for cars is at 1.16 million and climbing
Well, that's OK, then.
What is the exact number when it's no longer acceptable? Is is 1,001? 10,001?
Exactly how many deaths are perfectly fine in the name of progress? How many people are we allowed to kill for the sake of convenience?
Currently the yearly global death toll for cars is at 1.16 million and climbing
No need to compare. Both can be bad at the same time.
Traveling the same distance without rail or air (i.e. on foot, horse, car) is also relatively deadly and the alternative (of living in small communities and not traveling long distances) is also not great for multiple reasons
You’d have to calculate how many lives speed saves. How many people had an organ delivered just within the safe transplant time? How many people were able to eat because a grain shipment could be diverted after a bad harvest? How many people didn’t contract cholera, because it takes minutes to manufacture pipes?
Translation: Money is more important than human lives.
Got it.
The trade-offs are worth it and humankind continues to accept those trade-offs. Yea 60+ people died in a train crash. So what? Tens of millions ride high-speed trains on a weekly/monthly basis without any issues. So why would we overreact to anomalies when by and large the technologies we’ve invented are pretty awesome?
I’m no opponent to the “slow life” and I have a lot of critical comments regarding modernity (cars, social media, modernist art) and overpopulation but we don’t need to throw the baby out with the bath water here.
Ask any cowboy. The fastest way to move a cow is slow.
None of these would happen in places that are not invaded by speed of technology and connectedness. Slow is good, not sometimes, but always. Human life is not compatible with things moving at speed of electricity.
But you gave the controlling power to children. The children with science toys want more and more speed, just for fun and profit. They, unfortunately, control the future of human race.